Overview
Cambridge researchers can now publish their review and primary research articles open access with no charge in journals that are part of deals referred to as "read & publish", "transformative" agreements, or "transitional agreements".
Authors submitting articles for publication in journals in these agreements will not be charged fees as the costs for open access publishing has been met centrally.
New deals and renewals are usually negotiated by JISC on the behalf of the UK JISC Consortia. The Journal Coordination Scheme considers each new deal (or renewal) on its merits, and the decision to sign up to a new deal or renew an existing one are taken by the Executive Committee, in consultation with the Steering Committee and Operational Group.
Terms of the agreements
All staff and students of the University may read journals published in the agreements. Researchers in the University may publish articles in the journals without incurring any article processing charge provided the following conditions are met:
- The journal is a participating journal
- The article type is covered by the deal (more detail on the terms of each deal can be found below)
- The corresponding author is a researcher affiliated to the University of Cambridge (they should be the corresponding author at the time that the paper is considered for approval). We advise authors to use their @cam.ac.uk email address (or sub-domain in the format YourCRSid@xxxx.cam.ac.uk) in the publisher's submission system.
Please be aware that the deals do not cover visiting, honorary or emeritus researchers by default, but requests may be approved in exceptional circumstances. If in doubt, please contact the Open Access Team.
All articles submitted in the agreements are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY) licence by default. An exception may be made by notification to the publisher in the article submission process if you need to publish with a different licence.
If your article is not published open access, but you believe it should have been, please contact the Open Access Team immediately.
The following section provide details about each of these agreements, including a link for each to a list of the journals included for open access publishing.
Current agreements
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
The University has signed a transformative agreement with ACM to enable unlimited open access publishing in all of its journals, magazines and conferences for papers with a University of Cambridge corresponding author. This deal covers research articles and conference proceedings. This deal is in place until 31 December 2025.
American Chemical Society (ACS)
The University has signed a transformative agreement with ACS to enable unlimited open access publishing in all of its journals. for papers with a University of Cambridge corresponding author. This deal covers research articles and is in place from 1 January 2022 until 31 December 2024. Articles with an acceptance date of 1 January 2022 or later that have been published behind the paywall will be made retrospectively OA through a CC license.
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
The University has signed a transformative agreement with AIP to enable open access publishing in their hybrid journals for papers with a University of Cambridge corresponding author. This deal covers research articles accepted from 1 January 2021 until 31 December 2023. Authors are advised that this deal does have an annual article cap. If the cap is reached, open access payments will be assessed on a case by case basis, according to funder mandates
American Physical Society
The University has an interim arrangement with American Physical Society, which provides unlimited open access publishing in American Physical Society's Physical Review hybrid journals with a University of Cambridge corresponding author. The deal covers article types acceptable under the policies of the Participating Journal, including but not limited to: Regular Articles, Letters, Rapid Communications, Reviews, Perspectives, and Short Papers.
American Physiological Society
The University has signed a transformative agreement with American Physiological Society, which provides unlimited open access publishing in American Physiological Society's twelve hybrid journals for papers with a University of Cambridge corresponding author. This deal covers all article types and is in place from 1 January 2023 until 31 December 2024.
American Psychological Association
The University has signed a publishing pilot with the American Psychological Association, which provides for open access publishing in American Psychological Association's participating hybrid journals with a University of Cambridge corresponding author. The deal has an annual article cap. If the cap is exceeded, researchers can use rights retention and self-archive the accepted manuscript with a CC BY licence. The deal covers peer-reviewed research and review articles covers articles accepted between 1 August 2023 and 31 July 2024.
Annual Reviews
The University has joined the Annual Reviews Subscribe to Open Scheme. The model requires sufficient numbers of libraries to subscribe to the journals each year, and the publisher will confirm whether the model will operate each year at the beginning of the year. The scheme is in place until 31 December 2025.
Berghahn Open Anthro
The University participates in Berghahn Open Anthro's subscribe-to-open pilot model. The pilot provides free open access publishing to authors in the participating journals. The model requires sufficient numbers of libraries to subscribe to the journals each year, and the publisher will confirm whether the model will operate each year at the beginning of the year. They have confirmed that the model will be operational in 2022.
BioScientifica
The University has signed a transformative agreement with BioScientifica, which provides unlimited open access publishing in BioScientifica's five hybrid journals for papers with a University of Cambridge corresponding author. This deal covers all article types and is in place from 1 January 2021 until 31 December 2024.
BMJ (British Medical Journal)
The University has signed a transformative agreement with BMJ, which provides unlimited open access publishing in BMJ's Standard and Open collections, for research papers with a University of Cambridge corresponding author. This deal only covers original articles reporting on primary research. This deal is in place from 1 January 2023 until 31 December 2024.
Brill
The University has signed a transitional agreement with Brill which provides for unlimited open access publishing of research and review articles by University of Cambridge corresponding authors in participating journals. Articles must be published on or after 1 January 2020 to be eligible. Eligibility will be determined at the point of submission. This deal covers research and review articles. This deal is in place from from 1 January 2021 until 31 December 2024.
Cambridge University Press
The University has signed a transitional agreement with Cambridge University Press to enable unlimited open access publishing of research, review, or rapid communication format articles by University of Cambridge corresponding authors. The deal is in place until 31 December 2024.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
The University has signed a transitional agreement with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press to enable unlimited open access publishing of research and review articles for University of Cambridge corresponding authors. The participating journals are:
The deal is in place until 31 December 2024.
De Gruyter
The University has joined De Gruyter's Subscribe to Open Scheme, which allows unlimited open access for University of Cambridge corresponding authors publishing in participating journals. The model requires sufficient numbers of libraries to subscribe to the journals each year, and the publisher will confirm whether the model will operate each year at the beginning of the year.
Elsevier
The University has signed a transitional agreement agreement with Elsevier to enable unlimited open access for University of Cambridge corresponding authors publishing in participating hybrid journals, including Cell Press and the Lancet. The deal is in place for articles accepted from 1 January 2022 until 31 December 2024. In addition, University of Cambridge corresponding authors publishing in Elsevier's fully gold open access journals will receive a 15% discount on the Article Processing Charge (APC). Please note that review articles in some Cell Press and Lancet journals are excluded from the deal; please contact the Open Access Team info@openaccess.cam.ac.uk for further information.
- More details about the Elsevier deal can be found on our page, University of Cambridge and Elsevier, and Elsevier's website.
European Mathematical Society
The University has joined the European Mathematical Society's Subscribe to Open Scheme, which allows unlimited open access for University of Cambridge corresponding authors publishing in participating journals.
European Respiratory Society
The University has a signed a transitional agreement with the European Respiratory Society for unlimited open access publishing for all research articles by University of Cambridge corresponding authors in the European Respiratory Journal, the flagship journal of the European Respiratory Society. This deal is in place until 31 December 2023.
Geological Society of London
The University has signed a transitional agreement with the Geological Society's Lyell Collection, including read access to 14 journal and book sites and unlimited open access publishing in 9 hybrid journals and book series for all research articles by University of Cambridge corresponding authors from 1 January 2023 until 31 December 2023.
Institute of Physics Publishing
The University has signed a transitional agreement with the Institute of Physics that provides unlimited open access publishing of research articles by University of Cambridge corresponding authors from 1 January 2020 in 45 of the IOPP hybrid journals. The remaining “partner-hybrid” journals published by IOPP are expected to join the agreement from the start of 2021. This deal is in place from 1 January 2020 until 31 December 2023.
Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR)
The University has signed a flat fee agreement with JMIR, which provides unlimited open access publishing for University of Cambridge corresponding authors. The deal is in place from 1 April 2022 until 31 March 2024. In addition to the requirement for authors to use their @cam.ac.uk email address and Cambridge affiliation during the submission process (outlined in the introduction section above), to access the deal, authors should indicate in their cover letter that they are "requesting APC waiver through the Cambridge-JMIR OA deal via Jisc."
The University has renewed the transitional agreement with the Microbiology Society for unlimited, immediate open access publishing for research papers and review articles, where the corresponding author is affiliated with the University of Cambridge. The deal is in place until 31 December 2024.
Mohr Siebeck
The University has joined Mohr Siebeck's Subscribe to Open Scheme for their journal Religion in the Roman Empire. The arrangement allows unlimited open access for University of Cambridge corresponding authors publishing in Religion in the Roman Empire. The model requires sufficient numbers of libraries to subscribe to the journal each year, and the publisher will confirm whether the model will operate each year at the beginning of the year. The scheme is in place until 31 December 2024.
Optica
The University has signed a transitional agreement with Optica for open access publishing of research and review articles in participating hybrid and fully open access journals. The deal operates an annual article cap, which is waived in the first year. The deal is in place until 31 December 2024.
Oxford University Press
The University has signed a transitional agreement with Oxford University Press for open access publishing of research and review articles in all of OUP's participating journals for corresponding authors from the University of Cambridge. This is a 3 year agreement starting 1 January 2021 and is in place until 31 December 2023.
- More details about this agreement from Oxford University Press
- Overview of the author workflow, publication process, and support materials from Oxford University Press
Portland Press/Biochemical Society
The University has renewed the transitional agreement with Portland Press for an uncapped number of open access articles for research papers and review articles with a corresponding author from the University of Cambridge, in all seven of of Portland Press' journals (five hybrid titles plus two full-OA journals). The deal is in place until 31 December 2023.
Public Library of Science (PLOS)
The University of Cambridge has signed up to both the PLOS Flat Fee agreement and the PLOS Community Action Publishing agreement. Both deals provide unlimited open access publishing for University of Cambridge affiliated authors.
Open Access fees for University of Cambridge corresponding authors will be covered for the following journals: PLOS ONE, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, PLOS Pathogens, PLOS Digital Health, PLOS Climate, PLOS Water, and PLOS Global Public Health (via a flat fee agreement) and PLOS Medicine, PLOS Biology and PLOS Sustainability & Transformation (via the community action agreement). This deal is in place from 1 January 2021 until 31 December 2023.
Royal Society
The University has signed a transitional agreement with the Royal Society for an uncapped number of open access articles for research papers and review articles with a corresponding author from the University of Cambridge, in all ten of the Royal Society’s' journals (eight hybrid titles plus two full-OA journals). The Royal Society will apply the deal to unpublished papers that are in the review system between 1 January 2021 and the date of this agreement going live. This deal is in place from 1 January 2021 until 31 December 2023.
- More information about the Royal Society’s Read & Publish deal
- Royal Society's Read & Publish animation
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
The University has signed a transitional agreement with the Royal Society of Chemistry for unlimited open access publishing for University of Cambridge corresponding. The deal covers full papers, communications, and reviews published in the Royal Society of Chemistry's hybrid journals, and is in place until 31 December 2024.
SAGE
The University has signed a transitional agreement with SAGE for unlimited open access publishing in participating journals in SAGE's portfolio of hybrid journals for papers with a University of Cambridge corresponding author. In addition, authors publishing in any of SAGE's fully open access journals will receive a 20% discount on the open access publication fee. The deal covers research papers and review articles and communication papers. This deal is in place until 31 December 2024.
Springer Nature
The University has signed a transitional deal with Springer Nature, covering participating hybrid journals in the Springer Portfolio, Nature Academic, Nature and Palgrave journals. This agreement covers the following article types: Original Paper (also referred to as Original Research, Original Article, or Research Paper), Review Paper, Brief Communication, and Continuing Education. When publishing in a Nature journal, only Original Papers are eligible article types. In addition, authors publishing in any of Springer Nature's fully open access journals will receive a 15% discount on the open access publication fee. This deal is in place until 31 December 2025.
Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)
The University has signed an add-on to its subscription package that provides unlimited open access publishing for University of Cambridge corresponding authors in participating journals. The agreement covers research and review articles and covers papers submitted during the subscription year 1 Sep 2022 to 31 Aug 2023.
The Company of Biologists
The University has renewed its Read & Publish Deal with The Company of Biologists. The deal provides read access, as well as unlimited, immediate open access publishing for all research and reviews articles by University of Cambridge corresponding authors in the Society’s three hybrid journals and two fully open access journals. This is a 3-year agreement covering 2022, 2023, and 2024 that is reviewed and evaluated annually.
Taylor & Francis
The University has signed a transitional agreement with Taylor & Francis that provides immediate open access publishing for all research and review articles by University of Cambridge corresponding authors in participating hybrid journals across Taylor & Francis' Social Sciences & Humanities, Science & Technology, and Medicine Collections. There is an annual funding cap in place for this agreement. This deal is in place from 1 January 2021 until 31 December 2023.
Wiley
The University has signed a transitional agreement with Wiley for open access publishing for corresponding authors from the University of Cambridge in participating journals across Wiley's portfolio. This deal also covers journals in the Wiley-Hindawi partnership. There is an annual funding cap which progressively transitions to 100% open access publishing over the term of the agreement. This agreement is in place from 1 January 2020 until 31 December 2023. The deal covers research and review articles.
Wolters Kluwer
The University has signed a transitional agreement with Wolters Kluwer for open access publishing for corresponding authors from the University of Cambridge in participating hybrid journals. There is an annual funding cap. This agreement is in place from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2024. This deal covers research and review articles.
How to get help and further advice
For any enquiry about the information on this page or for help in the article submission process please contact the Open Access Team.
Last updated 17/3/23